Presented at State of the Map Asia 2018 Conference, held in IIM, Bangalore.

1. Mapping efforts in an unsurveyed land:
Koorachundu village panchayat
experience
- Jaisen Nedumpala
(Assistant Secretary to the Koorachundu Village Panchayat;
Member of Executive Committee,
Swathanthra Malayalam Computing;
Research scholar, Mahatma Gandhi University, Kottayam.)
State of the Map Asia 2018 Conference – Bangalore.

2. Village Panchayats
State of the Map Asia 2018 Conference – Bangalore.

Constitutional bodies.

Local authorities
- Quasi judicial powers
- First respondents in case of disasters.

Implementing agency
- Developmental projects of it's own and, of the
government.

Role in Environmental protection - KPR Act 3rd
Schedule -Environmental hygiene, awareness,
upgradation; Social Forestry.

Biodiversity Management Committee (Biological
Diversity Act - 2002)

Enforcement of building rules, ref. CRZ notification.

3. Village Panchayat Profile
India - Kerala - Kozhikode Dist. - Balussery Block.

87.98 KM2
s. ?

Population: 17331(2011). Voters: 13639

Wards: 13 nos.

Assembly Constituency : Balussery

Parliament Constituency: Kozhikode

Most of the areas remain unsurveyed.

Revenue Villages
– Koorachundu, Chakkittapara, Kayanna (Koyilandy Taluk) and
– Kanthalad (Thamarassery Taluk).

Forest - Pervannamuzhi Range, Malabar WLS.

KSEB - Kuttiyadi Hydroelectric Project (Kakkayam Dam and reservoir).

Irrigation – Kuttiyadi Irrigation Project – Peruvannamuzhi Reservoir.
State of the Map Asia 2018 Conference – Bangalore.

4. Village Panchayat – Location
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5. Four revenue villages
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6. Village Panchayat – Features
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7. Integral Institutions, functionaries
1 Krishi Bhavan – Koorachundu
2 Veterinary Dispensary
– Koorachundu
3 Veterinary Sub Centre
– Kariyathumpara
4 Primary Heath Centre - Kakkayam
5 Family Welfare Centre
– Mandoppara
6 Family Welfare Centre
– Keloth vayal
7 Family Welfare Centre - Kallanode
8 Family Welfare Centre
– Kattulla mala
9 Ayurveda dispensary
– Koorachundu
10 Homeo Dispensary (NRHM)
– Koorachundu
11 KHEP Govt. L P School
– Kakkayam
12 Sisumandiram (Nursery School)
– Kallanode
13 ICDS Supervisor and
– 19 Anganwadi Centres
14 LSGD Section (Koorachundu/Kottur)
15 Village Extension Officers for
– Koorachundu and Kallanode circles
16 Koorachund Village Panchayat
– Kudumbasree Community
Development Society
17 Koorachundu Village Panchayat
– Literacy Mission
18 Koorachundu Village Panchayat
– Samskarika Nilayam
(Cultural Centre - Library & Reading
room)
State of the Map Asia 2018 Conference – Bangalore.
Panchayat Secretary, Five gazetted officers, Four non-gazetted implementing officers - A
total staff strength of 107 including 21 @ O/o Village Panchayat.

8. Major focus areas of Panchayat

Develop Basic Infrastructure,

Provide drinking water by implementing
Drinking Water Supply Schemes, and

Provide housing to the homeless.
State of the Map Asia 2018 Conference – Bangalore.

9. Introduction

We receive different categories of funds from
the government for developmental activities.

But they are not unconditional.

Utilising them are strictly controlled by the
government through numerous directions like
Guidelines /Orders /Circulars etc.
State of the Map Asia 2018 Conference – Bangalore.

10. Responsibilities

Citizens have the right to Information to have the basic details
about their surroundings in an authentic fashion.

Local governments - Custodians of Asset registers

The details of basic infrastructure - road networks and
other public facilities.

First respondents in case of any hazards, in practical
sense.

Requirement by RTI Act - 2005

Sections 4(1), 4(2), 4(3), 4(4):

Local governments - public authorities

Responsible for maintaining their records duly catalogued
and indexed,

Responsible to provide as much information suo motu
to the public through various means of
communications, including internet.
State of the Map Asia 2018 Conference – Bangalore.

11. Contradictions

Essence of the definition of E-Governance by UNESCO

Encourage Citizen Participation in Governance.

Central govt guidelines – GIS to be applied.

Common Guidelines for Watershed Development
Projects, 2008 – Use current trends & advances in IT &
Remote Sensing, Technology inputs - GIS.

Saansad Adarsh Gram Yojana Guidelines – Assets to be
mapped using GIS.

But village panchayats can't formulate GIS projects

Vide Govt. Circular No: 71639/IB1/2012/LSGD dated
11/3/2013 - Enforces restrictions over the individual software
development activities of the LSGIs of Kerala,

Vide Govt. Circular No:1942/D.C.2/2013/LSGD dated
13/12/2013 - Prohibits village panchayats from formulating
projects or spend money to develop a custom GIS.
State of the Map Asia 2018 Conference – Bangalore.

12. #OpenGeoData

Koorachundu Village Panchayat -

State of Affairs – No Resource Map, No Cadastral Map, No
GIS.

But pops up several instances to draw maps:

Kasturirangan report, Ward delimitation, Sevagram
Gramakendram etc.

Need baseline GeoData for Developmental Planning and
Implementation and to empower the stakeholders.

Need of OpenGeoData in case of Emergencies - without hassle.

It is easy to draw maps from the layers of GIS, when in need.

If there is commonly accessible repository of OpenGeoData,
people can access the data when they need, without any formal
requests to the village panchayat, satisfying the responsibility
imposed by RTI Act - Sec: 4(1), 4(2), 4(3), 4(4).
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13. All we had was: Ward Map
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14. Objectives

Develop the different layers of village panchayat
level OpenGeoData, with community
participation to suit the needs of suo-motu
dissemination of spatial information to encourage
and enable the effective citizen participation in the
decision-making process.

Ensure that this necessary spatial information can be
accessed with the attribute data in local / regional
language.
State of the Map Asia 2018 Conference – Bangalore.

15. Implementation Strategy

Administrative
• Don't formulate a formal project (Ref: Circulars
mentioned before).
• Make use of the government circulars/ orders/
guidelines to draw any kind of map to enhance
that level of existing base of OpenGeoData.

Technical
• Use the existing OpenGeoData platforms and
Free/OpenSource frameworks and ensure the
community volunteering involvements to
minimise the expenses.
State of the Map Asia 2018 Conference – Bangalore.

16. State Election Commission's
Order

Order No. 311/2014/SEC Dated: 18/6/2014

LSGIs of Kerala have no systematically prepared
base maps useful for administrative, scientific and
academic purposes as an official document.

Such a map would be useful as a base document for
future delimitation of wards or bifurcation of LSGIs.
State of the Map Asia 2018 Conference – Bangalore.

17. Activities

1st Phase

Koorachundu Village panchayat OpenStreetMap
Mapping Party

GPS Survey - 4 days - 21/07/2014 to 24/07/2014.

20 OSM - GPS survey volunteers.

17 Field level resource persons.

Team – 1 or 2 OSM volunteers + 1 or 2 resource person.

Food and accommodation by Village Panchayat.
State of the Map Asia 2018 Conference – Bangalore.

18. Essentials

Steering Committee resolution no: 2 dated 17/07/2014. - To
conduct OpenStreetMap mapping party to map the area.

Official partnership with Swathanthra Malayalam Computing.

Volunteers from Swathanthra malayalam Computing, Dr.
R.Satheesh Centre for Remote Sensing and GIS- Mahatma
Gandhi University, Kottayam and from Wikimedians and one
from IT@School project.

Field level resource persons from Village panchayat.
State of the Map Asia 2018 Conference – Bangalore.

19. Partnership

Swathanthra Malayalam Computing have expertise in
Indian Language Computing and FOSS domain and using
ICTs for Development.

Both Village Panchayat and SMC conceived this as an
OpenGeoData initiative:
–Start from OpenStreetMap and extend to other
elements.

Swathanthra Malayalam Computing helped in mobilising
experts, volunteers and trainers and done the technology
and implementation part of the programme.
State of the Map Asia 2018 Conference – Bangalore.

20. How we did it.

In field:

Android mobile phones with GPS receiver

Three Android Apps

GPS Logger for Android (GPL)

Keypad-Mapper – OpenStreetMap (BSD)

OSMTracker for Android™ (GPL V3)

GPX tracks and data in OSM format

At desk:

JOSM (GPL)

iD (WTFPL)

and Microsoft Bing Imagery
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21. In Field
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22. GPS Logger for Android
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23. Keypad-Mapper - OpenStreetMap
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24. OSMTracker for Android™
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25. At Desk - JOSM
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26. At Desk - iD

F
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27. At Desk
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28. Before Mapping activities
After Mapping party
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29. Achievements

Output - Physical

Created the Base OpenGeoData with the following
layers:

Ward boundaries(2010),

Place names,

Road network (partial),

Polling booths,

Integral institutions,

Other major institutions and

Places of worship.
State of the Map Asia 2018 Conference – Bangalore.

30. Processing technique
to build map

Followed a Standard ETL Procedure

Extracted the data from OpenStreetMap

Transformed and Loaded in QGIS

Processed and prepared map with QGIS

Vector → OpenStreetMap → Import topology
form .osm(xml)

Output SpatiaLite DB →Export topology to
SpatiaLite DB in QGIS

Compose in QGIS Map Composer → Exported
as .svg

Finishing works with Inkscape
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31. Boundary Map from Survey Dept.
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32. Resultant Administrative Map
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33. Continuing work

2nd phase

Village reorganisation in progress (4 into 1), involving
surveyors from the Dept. of Survey & Land Records, the
authorities at the revenue village offices.

Joint field verification and, the verification of Taluk
authorities is finished, and submitted for the Government
approval.

Village Panchayat received an accurate Cadastral Map,
and the #OpenGeoData of cadastral details also as a by-
product.
State of the Map Asia 2018 Conference – Bangalore.

34. Joint Field Verification
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35. Joint Field Verification
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36. Draft Village Map
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37. Check the shape with this..
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38. Government notification

Government issued the final correction notification in the
official gazette regarding the Koorachundu village re-
organisation as a result of our joint efforts ( 4 Village officers,
Surveyors of Dept. of Survey and Land Records, and Village
Panchayat).

Notification no: G.O.(Ms) No:243/2017/Revenue Dated
21/07/2017.
State of the Map Asia 2018 Conference – Bangalore.

39. Government notification
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40. Government notification
State of the Map Asia 2018 Conference – Bangalore.
●
Area of Koorachundu village (Village
panchayat as well)– fixed at 8236.8522
Ha (82.3685 KM2
)
●
Earlier it was 22.56 KM2
for Koorachundu
village and 87.98 KM2
for Village panchayat.

41. Work to be done..

Mapping of assets, natural resources, need to be completed.

The cadastral map to be geo-referenced properly, as it would
be perfectly get aligned with the collected map data.

The completed cadastral data to be hosted with a custom
WebGIS, which is accessible through the web.

A WMS with OGC standards needed to be integrated for the
better accessibility of map data.
State of the Map Asia 2018 Conference – Bangalore.

42. Sustainability

We felt that this method involving stakeholder communities, is
the most cost effective way to develop baseline GIS data
for a village panchayat.

People seeking GeoData for their needs, can directly
download the data from OpenGeoData repositories.

That will encourage and empower the people to
effectively involve in planning/administrative process.

Data also will be available at finger tip, when in case of
hazards, to draw maps to plan logistics.
State of the Map Asia 2018 Conference – Bangalore.

43. Full story on the initial work is at:
http://blog.smc.org.in/mapping-efforts-in-an-unsurveyed-land-koorachundu/
?jaisuvyas@gmail.com
State of the Map Asia 2018 Conference – Bangalore.